Blood Won't Bring Her Back
by SunbakedGeoduck
Summary: 'The people can have no Empress when her heart is away.' Corvo's love, his life, his Empress, is gone. Languishing in prison and torturing himself with her memory, Corvo's chance for revenge is offered up to him, the opportunity he's been looking for, but he's hesitant. Does he lose himself to revenge or does he torment himself with her? Corvo/Jessamine.


_So I bought the game over Christmas and I've slowly grown to love it. It's frustrating as hell and I can't be sneaky even slightly, but there's just something about it that makes me love it. I just wish they'd done a little more with the story, instead of focusing on the 'you can choose how it ends' stuff, which was cool and all, but still. I absolutely adore Corvo, so I decided to explore him a little bit more. I hope you like it! _

_Many thanks for reading. :3_

He found her where he always found her these days, sitting on the balcony outside her bedroom window with her knees pressed tightly against her chest and her hair flowing down past her shoulders, gently stirring in the slight breeze. The wind swirled around Corvo, the salty scent of the ocean washing over him like a wave, and he took a deep breath in, tasting the bitter sea tang on his tongue. It occurred to him then that he hadn't seen the ocean properly in years, hadn't stood on the tip of the sandy beach with the tide washing over his bare feet while he stared out into the vast blue oblivion and wondered about a life beyond Dunwall. And now, after all this time apart, he was being forced to ride the rocky, poisoned waves to go and beg for help from the other High Cities. Now he'd been given permission to go out onto the water, to finally get a chance to explore the endless blue horizon he'd dreamed about since he was a boy, it felt like a cruel joke. It wouldn't be the calm and beautiful blue of his youth, able to soothe him even when a particularly black fury had swum over him, as it so often did when the Abbey Boys patrolled the streets, chanting their pious nonsense and kicking down every man who dared even hesitate when proclaiming their love for the High Overseer.

No. The sea would be a pitiful, diseased thing, an ugly speck of its former self taking him further and further away from home. From her. Even if he didn't love her, loved her more than words would allow, he would still feel fundamentally wrong in being sent away from her, leaving her unprotected. She couldn't see the snakes in her own grass, she refused to, but Corvo could; there were some who loathed her with every beat of their black hearts, plotting from right inside her city walls. It frustrated him that she couldn't see them, wouldn't even attempt to look, but it was also one of the reasons why he loved her. After the plague and the riots and everything, she was the one bright light left in this dirtied city, the one good thing unstained by disease and blood and war. Standing here now, watching her face with a crooked half smile as she stared dreamily out to sea, he felt lighter, like a vice around his heart had loosened. The world couldn't be all bad if there was this. If there was her.

He didn't quite know how he was going to cope without her, this little reminder of all the good this city had left. The idea of being surrounded by such despair all day made him feel like he was drowning, like he couldn't breathe.

She turned to him then, and his chest lightened, air flooding eagerly in. Her dark eyes were creased with worry, her ivory skin folded into a frown. She was so beautiful, even when she worried and poured over things that she had no control over. She wasn't a perfect ruler, if such a thing even dared to exist, but she loved her people fiercely. Any man who couldn't see that was a fool.

"The plague is spreading," she said morosely, leaning her head forward to rest on the bare skin of her upper arm. Corvo stayed where he stood, staring down at her blankly. He never offered any advice on how to deal with the problems thrown at her every day, though she'd asked him more times than he could count, and not just when they were alone either; she hadn't seen the sideways glances the council members had thrown at her when she'd asked Corvo what his thoughts on the rapidly developing Creeper crisis were, but Corvo had. There wasn't much Corvo missed, and there wasn't much he was willingly to tell either. He'd met her eyes for a few moments and said all he'd needed to say. There wasn't a person he trusted more with the task of trying to restore sanity to this city, and she'd gradually come to accept that, even if she wasn't willing to tell herself that.

She sighed and stood up. She was wearing a dark blue dress that stopped at her thighs, and it swung lazily in the gentle breeze. She preferred wearing simpler clothes, in front of Corvo at least. He knew she hated having the statement of power in between them; when she asked his opinion, she asked as an equal, not as an Empress.

"We can't keep up with the rate of infection; every time we burn one body, five more are dumped at our feet. And not _one _person is able to offer me even the _slightest _hint of how to contain it. The only piece of advice somebody gave me: was to dump the bodies in the ocean rather than burn them. And that wasn't even useful." She ran her hands through her wavy hair, stark white against ink black. "Is that what they expect me to do? Surround my city with bodies, make boats push their way through corpses to deliver anything? Trade routes are disappearing quickly enough as is, I don't need a sea of the _dead _getting in the way too." She sighed heavily and slumped her shoulders. She looked over at him then and a sad smile spread across her lips. "And then… my advisors tell me to send you in my place to beg for the other Cities to pity us…" she laughed humourlessly. "I need better advisors," she added in a low murmur. "Corvo… you…" she stopped abruptly and smiled sadly. Corvo hated the pain in her smile. "Would it be selfish of me to ask you to stay?"

Corvo's heart thumped loudly at her words, hopefully. Every cell in his body ached for him to open his mouth and tell her, tell her that the thought of leaving her without his protection made him feel as cold as death inside. But his jaw remained tightly clenched, his tongue unwilling. The city was dying. If he didn't help her do all that he could and the city burned, they would blame her. And then they would come for her. And Corvo could not let that happen, couldn't even let that thought take form inside his head.

He remained silent.

She sighed, more exasperatedly now. "Just what will I do without your exciting conversation?" she drawled wryly, and he smirked at her, unable to keep up the stern soldier façade any longer. As he smiled, she did too, though the pain in her smile only grew too. She walked to him, looking so much smaller than she usually did, and he opened his arms up to let her step inside, circling her in his strong grip. The familiar urge to never let go bubbled up in his stomach and it was so much harder to fight now. "Corvo," she breathed his name softly, wistfully, and a surge of emotion hit Corvo with such force he had to close his eyes for a moment, steeling himself against the blow. _Just concentrate on your senses… the smell of her hair, strawberries entwined with sea water... the feel of her skin, like flawless silk underneath your fingertips… the sound of her voice, a siren call…_ "Corvo…" she tried again, but she couldn't speak, her voice breaking off as she whispered his name. He knew perfectly well what she'd say, what she always said whenever he went off on business, no matter how short a time he was gone. _'Corvo, hurry back to me. The people can have no Empress when her heart is away_'. It both thrilled him and killed him to hear those words. Every time.

"I know," he said in his gruff growl. He never told her that to be away from her for days and weeks on end made him feel as if there was no beating heart in his chest. Each time he came back was like a reawakening, a shock to the chest to get him ticking again.

They stayed still for a few moments, Corvo's arms wrapped around her, her face pressed against his chest. The blow of the wind made her sway in his arms and it almost felt like they were dancing.

"Corvo?" she said, a question in her voice. "I want you to tell me about the other Cities when you get back, okay? I want you tell me how completely awful it is over there, how much worse it is than here, okay? How Dunwall is actually doing a lot better than we think it is."

Corvo hid a smirk in her hair. "I will, my lady."

"And I want you to tell me all the wonderful things the peoples of the other Cities are saying about me. Every charming detail."

"I will, my lady."

"And, while you're there, you could also ask somebody to teach you to stop saying 'my lady'. Maybe there'll be somebody over there that can _finally _get it through to you."

"Doubtful, my lady."

She scowled up at him and he smiled slightly back. This was a game they played often, and he never tired of it, nor did he tire of the fondly exasperated scowl on her lovely face. "And try not to let them entice you in with all their riches and glory. You'd miss the rats too much," she grinned, showing off all her beautiful white teeth. It was rare to see a smile like that in Dunwall, and he'd imprinted it onto his mind, seared it onto the inside of his brain.

"Not the rats, my lady."

Her smile faded and tears filled her eyes. Corvo hated himself instantly, fervently.

"Jessamine-"

There was a clicking sound behind him then, a door being opened. Alarm rang through his entire body and he turned quickly, leaping away from the Empress like her skin burned like fire.

And just like that, the world fell away, fading back into darkness, dark grey and black and flickers of fiery red embers glowing off in the distance. The cold and the stink hit him then, rushing at him like old friends, and he swallowed hard, trying not to retch. His body shook in the icy cell and the chains around his wrists and ankles danced excitedly, tinkling like a flailing jester.

He looked around the small, dank cell, and it hit him all over again, just as fresh as the first time.

_This is your world now. Your light has been extinguished and there's nothing left to guide you through the filth and the dark and the decay_.

_Jessamine is dead_.

Fire filled his throat like he'd swallowed hot coals, rising up through his throat like acid, and he opened his mouth to cough it up. A scream tore through his mouth then, so loud and so agonised that he didn't even realise it was coming from him for a few seconds.

It happened every time he woke up and, every time it did, it felt as if another piece of his soul had been shaken loose, drifting away from him, free of this wretched place.

He wondered how long this would carry on for. How long he'd be doing this for. He was almost bored of this routine now, the dreaming and the waking and the screaming. He knew what was coming, what happened every time, but it still felt completely new, just as fresh and as raw as the first day, like a re-opened wound.

_Jessamine is dead_.

Jessamine was **murdered**.

Corvo's blood boiled and hissed and spat, and he felt anger like he'd never felt before, anger so strong his vision ripped at the edges, tearing into throbbing veins of red and making his head feel like it was pumping. Faces, faceless beige smears, flashed before his eyes, and he didn't care that he didn't recognise any of the faces he saw before him, he didn't know who they were or what kind of person they were. All he knew is that they should die, _**would **_die for what they had done, what they had allowed to happen. _The best of you is dead. They will all __**burn **__for what they have done_.

Corvo let out another scream, a wordless roar of rage. A promise. _Before I die, I will __**take **__what they owe me, what they have stolen. I will __**rip**__ their __**hearts out**__ and they will know true hell._

In the darkness, unseen to bleary mortal eyes, the Outsider smiled, his pale eyes fixed on Corvo's crumpled form, his smirk growing at the unspoken promise carved into Corvo's heart.

_Wonderful._


End file.
